I have had the same trouble in conversations with folks who use
"Darwinist" and had a related question. It seems like Darwinism should
refer to natural selection and survival of the fittest (or better
adapted) - evolution as Darwin saw it. The other evolution mechanisms
mentioned below would seem then to be additional "pressures" which
Darwin did not appreciate at the time, but which have since been found
to contribute to a larger concept of natural selection and the overall
ensemble of evolutionary processes.

But when "Darwinist" is used as a straw man and pejorative, it seems to
be a catch-all for all evolutionary processes while implying at the same
time that the whole of the evolutionary picture nonetheless manifests
all the deficiencies of Darwin's narrower picture. That seems a little
duplicitous, perhaps akin to ID's "design" and "information" uses which
embrace fashionably contemporary technology terms, but warp the
definitions to be something other than what is generally associated with
the language. JimA

Robert Schneider wrote:

>Jim writes:
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>>Generally, when we describe someone as a "Darwinian," we are saying that
>>they believe that gradualism and selection are the important features in
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>an
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>>evolutionary process. It seems that ecologists tend to be hard-core
>>Darwinian.
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>>Non-Darwinian biologists view drift, founder effects, macromutations
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>(those
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>>with multiple effects) and similar processes as the important mechanisms
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>in
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>>an evolutionary pathway. S.J. Gould popularized this in the punctuated
>>equilibrium model.
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>>Jim Behnke james.behnke@asbury.edu>>Asbury College
>>Wilmore, KY 40390 859-858-3511 x 2232
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>Thanks, Jim. I'm grateful for this statement. But a query. Do not such
>phenomena as gene flow, genetic drift, founder effect, etc., still depend in
>some way on selection, as in the establishment of a new population in a new
>environment (e.g., migration to an island), even though the rate of
>evolutionary change may be much more than gradual? Help me out in
>understanding and clarifying this point.
>
>Thanks,
>Bob Schneider
>(Berea College ex-patriate now in Boone, NC)
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